“Every one who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe-a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble.”

Simone Weil wrote:

I believe that one identical thought is to be found—expressed very precisely and with only slight differences of modality—in. . .Pythagoras, Plato, and the Greek Stoics. . .in the Upanishads, and the Bhagavad Gita; in the Chinese Taoist writings and. . .Buddhism. . .in the dogmas of the Christian faith and in the writings of the greatest Christian mystics. . .I believe that this thought is the truth, and that it today requires a modern and Western form of expression. That is to say, it should be expressed through the only approximately good thing we can call our own, namely science. This is all the less difficult because it is itself the origin of science. Simone Weil….Simone Pétrement, Simone Weil: A Life, Random House, 1976, p. 488

Do you believe an eventual union of science and religion is possible based upon what these and other brilliant people seemed to understand?

Here is Einstein in full on the subject of religion , including the full quote the above poster excerpted. What is it about Einstein that makes religious types think that they need to “claim” him for their side?

He didn’t believe in God or anything remotely like a personal God.

He was well aware of the incessant attempts on the part of religious types to attribute to him your own beliefs.

In 1954 he answered a letter inquiring about his religious beliefs. This was only a few months before his death a fact of which he was well aware.

“It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious
convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do
not belive in a personal God and I have never denied this but
have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be
called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the
structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.”

Asked previously In 1927 he had this to say:

“I cannot concieve of a personal God who would directy influence
the actions of individuals, or would directly sit in judgment on
creatures of his own creation. I cannot do this in spite of the
fact that mechanistic causality has, to a certain extent, been
placed in doubt by modern science. [He was speaking of Quantum
Mechanics and the breaking down of determinism.]
My religiosity consists in a humble admiratation of the
infinitely superior spirit that reveals itself in the little that
we, with our weak and transitory understanding, can comprehend
of reality. Morality is of the highest importance—but for us,
not for God.”

A child wrote him in 1936 and asked him and other scientists prayed: He wrote:

“Scientific research is based on the idea that everything that
takes place is determined by laws of nature, and therefore this
holds for the action of people. For this reason, a research
scientist will hardly be inclined to believe that events could
be influenced by a prayer, i.e. by a wish addressed to a
Supernatural Being.
However, it must be admitted that our actual knowledge of
these laws is only imperfect and fragmentary, so that, actually,
the belief in the existence of basic all-embracing laws in
Nature also rests on a sort of faith. All the same this faith
has been largely justified so far by the success of scientific
research.
But, on the other hand, every one who is seriously involved
in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit
is manifest in the laws of the Universe—a spirit vastly
superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with
our modest powers must feel humble. In this way the pursuit of
science leads to a religious feeling of a special sort, which is
indeed quite different from the religiosity of someone more naive.”

Neither Einstein, Spinoza, Simone Weil or others were referring to a personal God but rather an ineffable conscious source outside the boundries of time and space. All we can know of this source is the functioning of laws that science experiments with.

We measure results of the interactions of universal laws. Yet what is the source of laws? They cannot come into being mechanically but require a conscious source. Einstein recognized the source but not its man made egoistic devolution into society as personal gods.

The union of science and religion is the union of mind and heart. Where science measures facts the essence of religion is the result of the need for man’s “being” to consciously evolve. The union of science and religion is the union of facts and a developing human “perspective.”

Neither Einstein, Spinoza, Simone Weil or others were referring to a personal God but rather an ineffable conscious source outside the boundries of time and space. All we can know of this source is the functioning of laws that science experiments with.

We measure results of the interactions of universal laws. Yet what is the source of laws?

They cannot come into being mechanically but require a conscious source.

And you know this how? Through an act of Pure Reason? This is the “god in the gaps” argument.

Neither Einstein, Spinoza, Simone Weil or others were referring to a personal God but rather an ineffable conscious source outside the boundries of time and space. All we can know of this source is the functioning of laws that science experiments with.

We measure results of the interactions of universal laws. Yet what is the source of laws?

They cannot come into being mechanically but require a conscious source.

And you know this how? Through an act of Pure Reason? This is the “god in the gaps” argument.

No. God in the gaps in an answer to events we cannot yet understand. I am referring to the source of the universal laws making universal funtioning possible. God in the gaps refers to results, and laws refer to process.

Intellectually it makes far more sense for me to begin with “consciousness without content” within which everything exists as potential. It is the same idea as the Tao, Ayn Sof, and Plato’s “Good” for example. It manifests the laws necessary for this machine we call “universe” to fucntion with its purpose of transfoming substances science measures through chemistry.

No. God in the gaps in an answer to events we cannot yet understand. I am referring to the source of the universal laws making universal funtioning possible. God in the gaps refers to results, and laws refer to process.

Actually, “the laws that refer to process”, whatever that means (and no, don’t bother elaborating), if it even makes sense to refer to any such entity, are just one more undistinguished set amongst the many sets of things we don’t understand. It is in the gap. You are trying to fill that gap by referencing god.

It’s the old pholgiston argument. In order to explain what we now understand as oxidative processes like burning and rusting, it was theorized that all bodies contained something called pholgiston, which was given up when they burned or rusted.

Of course it was put forth in the 17th century before anyone had the pre-requisite knowledge needed to explain the phenomena, so there was no way to correct the people who put forward this theory.

You’re doing exactly the same thing. You’re saying we don’t understand where laws “came from” or what “guides them” and because you live in a time in which these questions have no ready answer, you’re filling it with God.

Whoever told you God in the Gaps is restricted to this:

God in the gaps in an answer to… (just)... events (emphasis added) we cannot yet understand.

lied to you. God in the Gaps refers to any attempt to fill any mystery- scientific , philosophical or personal, with God-Certainity, such as you’re doing here. And no, it doesn’t matter that the specific subject matter is “the source of universal laws”.

And there’s a further problem with your argument. You’re reifying something which , like pholgiston, you reason simply MUST exist. But just like pholgiston, it may not map to any part of reality whatsoever, for reasons no one can explain to you now because we lack the necessary constructs.

So your question may be as nonsensical as the question- “how much pholgiston does an elephant have?”

It’s a compelling illusion that our brains give us- our unaided reasoning can make sense or at least ask sensible questions about the universe. It CAN do that, but as soon as it departs even two feet from experimental results and the constructs their evidence compels upon us, it falls flat on its face.

Asking these kinds of ultimate questions is natural, as is filling in the answer with god or other mysterious forces. In fact, it may even be the case that ultimate reality and our minds are simply not made for each other the way a goldfish will never understand the purpose of a nuke, even though he lives in a world populated by such things.

There may even be other ways of understanding reality, maybe there are what we now call mystical ways of apprehending some part of reality. Maybe what we think of as ourselves is just a part of our real selves. Maybe all things are interconnected in such a way as the idea of a single thing of separate identity is itself an illusion. Maybe a lot of things in this world and let’s not amputate inquiry prematurely and kill off our own wonder of the universe in the name of being philosophically “pure” to “science”.

But one thing is certain- if any of the above are true, then the scientific method will reveal them to be true because what is what “being true” means.

Any such assertions to knowledge or the existence of things has to be able to explain and predict actual events in the real world as measured through suitably constructed experiments and the public observation of their results.

The opposite of this, where theories cannot predict or predict wrongly but are still somehow allowed to hold the mantle of truth in society is called insanity. You predict one thing, yet reality is another, but your theory is still right . Insanity.

You have a theory. Your theory predicts nothing in the real world. Someone posits a theory which is the exact opposite as your theory in every detail - and rest assured a suitable theory of this kind can be constructed for any theory which predicts nothing. This opposing theory also makes no predictions about the real world, and with equal accuracy as your own theories ability to not-predict !

Yet you uphold your own theory as true and dismiss the other theory as false.

Insanity.

Why do you think the televangelists resort to magicians tricks to convince their gullible donors that they are witnessing a miracle?

“To restore to science as a whole, for mathematics as well as psychology and sociology, the sense of its origin and veritable destiny as a bridge leading toward God—-not by diminishing, but by increasing precision in demonstration, verification and supposition—-that would indeed be a task worth accomplishing.” Simone Weil

There simply is no objective contradiction between science and the essence of religion. When it occurs it is because of our ignorance. Notice that I wrote the ESSENCE of religion.

Actually, “the laws that refer to process”, whatever that means (and no, don’t bother elaborating), if it even makes sense to refer to any such entity, are just one more undistinguished set amongst the many sets of things we don’t understand. It is in the gap. You are trying to fill that gap by referencing god.

You don’t like to read about laws so I’ll just keep this simple and post a link that explains the Law of the Included Middle for interested readers. The basic idea is that science traditionally measures in relation to duality while the universe and the essential religious appreciation of it requires opening to the triune universe.

Science normally follows the Law of the Excluded Middle. Spiritual appreciation of existence in relation to its Source requires opening psychologically to the Law of the Included Middle.

How many even know of these two laws that seem contradictory but are actually complimentary? You are probably laughing by now which is normal. Yet there are those rare ones like Basarab Nicolescu who are not only brilliant scientists but willing to open their power of reason to a new direction that furthers the natural unification of science and religion

There simply is no objective contradiction between science and the essence of religion. When it occurs it is because of our ignorance.

That is the very definition of God in the Gaps.

The basic idea is that science traditionally measures in relation to duality while the universe and the essential religious appreciation of it requires opening to the triune universe.

Which means… whatever you want it to mean. I know of no part of the scientific method which states “we measure in relation to duality” . I was never told this, nor do I know anyone who was.

How many even know of these two laws that seem contradictory but are actually complimentary? You are probably laughing by now which is normal. Yet there are those rare ones like Basarab Nicolescu who are not only brilliant scientists but willing to open their power of reason to a new direction that furthers the natural unification of science and religion

This is sounding more and more like “who will listen to the Messiah???!!! Only the enlightened!”

BTW, tell your guru that his name wasn’t “van Neumann” like “van Gogh”; it was von Neumann

There simply is no objective contradiction between science and the essence of religion. When it occurs it is because of our ignorance.

That is the very definition of God in the Gaps.

The basic idea is that science traditionally measures in relation to duality while the universe and the essential religious appreciation of it requires opening to the triune universe.

Which means… whatever you want it to mean. I know of no part of the scientific method which states “we measure in relation to duality” . I was never told this, nor do I know anyone who was.

How many even know of these two laws that seem contradictory but are actually complimentary? You are probably laughing by now which is normal. Yet there are those rare ones like Basarab Nicolescu who are not only brilliant scientists but willing to open their power of reason to a new direction that furthers the natural unification of science and religion

This is sounding more and more like “who will listen to the Messiah???!!! Only the enlightened!”

BTW, tell your guru that his name wasn’t “van Neumann” like “van Gogh”; it was von Neumann

It is ironic that often those who espouse reason appreciate it only as a means for self justification rather than for furthering truth. Yet we are fortunate to have these rare human beings who will unite science and religion, mind and heart, if humanity is to survive technology.

We are really quite backwards. We’ve acquired highly efficient means for self destruction without being in touch with the meaning of life itself. We simply lack respect for life since we don’t question its purpose.

Evolution for example is a meaningless term. it is like saying “What goes up.” The “must come down” is missing.

Evolution is like saying “what goes up.” It makes far more sense to begin with “what comes down.” The only reason we avoid the natural is the dreaded G word. Yet if we were open collectively to “involution,” evolution would just be common sense. In the East the Breath of Brahma refers to the great cycle of involution and evolution. The out breath or involution is the creation of diversity from unity through the relative density of matter. Evolution is the return from diversity to unity. There are universal laws that make it possible including the Law of the Included Middle.

One of an infinite number of universal cycles of involution and evolution is an elementary unit of time for Buddhism.

Time in Buddhist cosmology is measured in kalpas. Originally, a kalpa was considered to be 4,320,000 years. Buddhist scholars expanded it with a metaphor: rub a one-mile cube of rock once every hundred years with a piece of silk, until the rock is worn away—and a kalpa still hasn’t passed! During a kalpa, the world comes into being, exists, is destroyed, and a period of emptiness ensues. Then it all starts again.

Secularism creates problems where they shouldn’t exist. If we became open to Man’s place within a triune universe, then all would be different. As denisons of Plato’s cave we remain closed to it so we are doomed to repeat the cycles of life described in Ecclesiastes 3 including: 8 a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

The only thing that’s been revealed is I have a life which requires me to engage with it and not all the time in the world to post in online chat forums.

Now as to your posts. I would say, and most readers I think would agree, that you’re losing badly.

I am sure you don’t see it that way but I am not posting for your benefit; I am trying to give a clear example of how to effectively refute the typical bullshit religious types sling around.

Here’s a good example of one of your sentences which says nothing except “you don’t like me much”:

It is ironic that often those who espouse reason appreciate it only as a means for self justification rather than for furthering truth.

Of course you’re the one who wants to abase the definition of truth so that it becomes “truthinesss”- so it’s just something that makes you feel good about the world in just the way you want to feel good about the world.

I can do no better than to ask readers to consider your last post preceding this one and ask themselves- does this person even know what he’s talking about or is he confused in his own mind , just rummaging through some set of hazy, “image-feeling-things” which do not correlate to reality in any meaningful and thus do nothing to advance our understanding of ourselves and help our position in relation to the real problems we face.

Is the below the kind of reasoning you’d like to see universities and researchers and governments engaging in as a way to solve problems? Would you accept something like what’s below as a satisfactory explanation from your government officials about why they decided to take a certain course of action?

Do you even feel comfortable giving the keys to the car to someone who jets out stuff like this:

Evolution for example is a meaningless term. it is like saying “What goes up.” The “must come down” is missing.

Evolution is like saying “what goes up.” It makes far more sense to begin with “what comes down.” The only reason we avoid the natural is the dreaded G word. Yet if we were open collectively to “involution,” evolution would just be common sense.

In the East the Breath of Brahma refers to the great cycle of involution and evolution. The out breath or involution is the creation of diversity from unity through the relative density of matter. Evolution is the return from diversity to unity. There are universal laws that make it possible including the Law of the Included Middle.

One of an infinite number of universal cycles of involution and evolution is an elementary unit of time for Buddhism.
Time in Buddhist cosmology is measured in kalpas. Originally, a kalpa was considered to be 4,320,000 years. Buddhist scholars expanded it with a metaphor: rub a one-mile cube of rock once every hundred years with a piece of silk, until the rock is worn away—and a kalpa still hasn’t passed! During a kalpa, the world comes into being, exists, is destroyed, and a period of emptiness ensues. Then it all starts again.

Secularism creates problems where they shouldn’t exist. If we became open to Man’s place within a triune universe, then all would be different. As denisons of Plato’s cave we remain closed to it so we are doomed to repeat the cycles of life described in Ecclesiastes 3 including: 8 a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

softwarevisualization provides a clear example of emotional denial. Consider the following sentence:

I am sure you don’t see it that way but I am not posting for your benefit; I am trying to give a clear example of how to effectively refute the typical bullshit religious types sling around.

The conclusion is a generality defining value based upon emotional denial. It is like saying “I am trying to give a clear example of how to effectively refute the typical bullshit women sling around.” It makes complete sense for anyone with an emotional bias against women.

I wrote:

It is ironic that often those who espouse reason appreciate it only as a means for self justification rather than for furthering truth.

This is classic psychology any student of psychology is aware of. Rationalizing is a means to support emotional denial.

Of course you’re the one who wants to abase the definition of truth so that it becomes “truthinesss”- so it’s just something that makes you feel good about the world in just the way you want to feel good about the world.

As I said. I define truth as does Plato. It is an attribute of the world of forms we lack access to from becoming a conditioned part of the world of “opinions.” That is why Simone stressed the importance of not giving ones love to false gods which are really just expressions of the world of opinions.

Sware. you will never have a grasp of the meaning and significance of evolution since you deny involution which suggests the dreaded G word.

The essence of religion (not its devolved secular forms) concerns the transition between man’s mechanical evolution as an animal arising from the earth where man serves the purpose of a mechanical necessity along with the rest of organic life, into man’s potential conscious evolution which leads back to the origin of Man’s involution.

In Christianity it is the transition of the Old Man into the New Man.

I remember a long time ago when the movie “Star Trek the motion Picture was released. It dealt with exactly this transition. A huge machine that knew everything was searching for its creator. It knew everything but yet had a need beyond computer knowledge. It became capable through the voluntary blend with a human being receiving a conscious potential.

Of course the movie was panned as nonsense. But for the minority open to the idea of the limitations of computer knowledge in relation to a conscious perspective and conscious potential, it made perfect sense.

Atheists that are not burdened with emotional denial and the reliance on rationalization are capable of the purification Simone refers to. Unfortunately they are few and far between. But it is the same with believers. Those who do not use faith as a means for consolation but instead as a means for connecting “As above, so below” are also few and far between.

So where most prefer the struggle between blind theism and blind atheism. I prefer finding representatives of the “few and far between” willing to admit the hypocrisy of the human condition as they experience it in themselves

The essence of religion (not its devolved secular forms) concerns the transition between man’s mechanical evolution as an animal arising from the earth where man serves the purpose of a mechanical necessity along with the rest of organic life, into man’s potential conscious evolution which leads back to the origin of Man’s involution.
In Christianity it is the transition of the Old Man into the New Man.

The above sentence is total nonsensical bullshit, yet this quality of “reasoning” is what you’d have society and its members guide their actions by, leading of course tot he same types of disasters and situations detailed by Harris in The End of Religion.

This is a forum for atheists to discuss the matters of the day. Why are you here at all? You’re just another proselytizing christian looking to unload his five day’s worth of built-up Jesus-goo into the face of some unwilling victims because you’re a fucking perv like that and it makes you feel gooooood.

At a time when unprecedented power to seek knowledge has been given to nearly everyone, when every aspect fo the world and every corner of the globe and its peoples is available to interact with and learn about, you’re a pathetic masturbater, sitting in front of his computer splunking around in cyberspace stammering on about Jesus while pulling his little dicklet because while none of it is real, it sure makes you feel good.

Sorry you’re a stunted human being whose chief form of fulfillment comes from playing a kind of make believe.. If it makes you feel better, we’re working hard to make sure more of your type aren’t spawned.

But of course you’re not just some loser diddling his own clit. You’re dangerous too. Just as evolutionary denialism paved the way for climate change denialism through habituating a population to anti-rational rejection of science, the scientific method and the veracity of scientific findings so also do “enlightened” religious pushers like yourself pave the way for political totalitarianism through habituating people to vacuous “arguments” and “reasoning” as that found above and throughout this thread.

Why don’t you and Allahboy go find a nice place offline and fight it out to the death, mortally wounding each other in the process? That would be the most constructive thing you’ve done your entire life.

The essence of religion (not its devolved secular forms) concerns the transition between man’s mechanical evolution as an animal arising from the earth where man serves the purpose of a mechanical necessity along with the rest of organic life, into man’s potential conscious evolution which leads back to the origin of Man’s involution.
In Christianity it is the transition of the Old Man into the New Man.

The above sentence is total nonsensical bullshit, yet this quality of “reasoning” is what you’d have society and its members guide their actions by, leading of course tot he same types of disasters and situations detailed by Harris in The End of Religion.

This is a forum for atheists to discuss the matters of the day. Why are you here at all? You’re just another proselytizing christian looking to unload his five day’s worth of built-up Jesus-goo into the face of some unwilling victims because you’re a fucking perv like that and it makes you feel gooooood.

At a time when unprecedented power to seek knowledge has been given to nearly everyone, when every aspect fo the world and every corner of the globe and its peoples is available to interact with and learn about, you’re a pathetic masturbater, sitting in front of his computer splunking around in cyberspace stammering on about Jesus while pulling his little dicklet because while none of it is real, it sure makes you feel good.

Sorry you’re a stunted human being whose chief form of fulfillment comes from playing a kind of make believe.. If it makes you feel better, we’re working hard to make sure more of your type aren’t spawned.

But of course you’re not just some loser diddling his own clit. You’re dangerous too. Just as evolutionary denialism paved the way for climate change denialism through habituating a population to anti-rational rejection of science, the scientific method and the veracity of scientific findings so also do “enlightened” religious pushers like yourself pave the way for political totalitarianism through habituating people to vacuous “arguments” and “reasoning” as that found above and throughout this thread.

Why don’t you and Allahboy go find a nice place offline and fight it out to the death, mortally wounding each other in the process? That would be the most constructive thing you’ve done your entire life.

You could have saved yourself a lot of aggravation if you had just written: “Yo momma sucks.” it would have had the same significance.

The essence of religion (not its devolved secular forms) concerns the transition between man’s mechanical evolution as an animal arising from the earth where man serves the purpose of a mechanical necessity along with the rest of organic life, into man’s potential conscious evolution which leads back to the origin of Man’s involution.
In Christianity it is the transition of the Old Man into the New Man.

The above sentence is total nonsensical bullshit, yet this quality of “reasoning” is what you’d have society and its members guide their actions by, leading of course tot he same types of disasters and situations detailed by Harris in The End of Religion.

This is a forum for atheists to discuss the matters of the day. Why are you here at all? You’re just another proselytizing christian looking to unload his five day’s worth of built-up Jesus-goo into the face of some unwilling victims because you’re a fucking perv like that and it makes you feel gooooood.

At a time when unprecedented power to seek knowledge has been given to nearly everyone, when every aspect fo the world and every corner of the globe and its peoples is available to interact with and learn about, you’re a pathetic masturbater, sitting in front of his computer splunking around in cyberspace stammering on about Jesus while pulling his little dicklet because while none of it is real, it sure makes you feel good.

Sorry you’re a stunted human being whose chief form of fulfillment comes from playing a kind of make believe.. If it makes you feel better, we’re working hard to make sure more of your type aren’t spawned.

But of course you’re not just some loser diddling his own clit. You’re dangerous too. Just as evolutionary denialism paved the way for climate change denialism through habituating a population to anti-rational rejection of science, the scientific method and the veracity of scientific findings so also do “enlightened” religious pushers like yourself pave the way for political totalitarianism through habituating people to vacuous “arguments” and “reasoning” as that found above and throughout this thread.

Why don’t you and Allahboy go find a nice place offline and fight it out to the death, mortally wounding each other in the process? That would be the most constructive thing you’ve done your entire life.

You could have saved yourself a lot of aggravation if you had just written: “Yo momma sucks.” it would have had the same significance.

It just wouldn’t have been much fun to read. While I am bothered by the written words in Sware’s latest post, I sympathize with him. You are extremely persistent in a very frustrating way.

While I once believed science and traditional faith could be unified, I have turned around in that matter. I believed science and traditional faith could go hand in hand because I was studying Physics, yet held on to Catholic Christianity. I didn’t want to believe that everything I had done for my soul was in vain. It took me years, and an abortion of my carreer as a physicist, to realize that most of the things we do are product to our vanity. After I shed that skin, I was ready to accept that traditional religion in regards to science is only the simple explanation holding us back. Just think about it: the personal god is amorphous and abstract enough to fill scientific gaps. What a laugh is that?

I hope I did you a favour by not quoting any BS from some famous dude; As we have seen, quotes are usually torn out of context